PSALMS 119:159 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O Lord, according to thy lovingkindness.”
The psalmist loves God's precepts and petitions God to revive him according to covenant loyalty and mercy. This verse returns to affirmation of love for God's commandments, grounding present petition in established commitment. The request for revival again introduces the theme of spiritual deadness or depletion: those who remain faithful through persecution require renewal. The appeal to both covenant loyalty and mercy suggests that the psalmist seeks divine action grounded simultaneously in God's justice (fulfilling covenant obligations) and compassion (exceeding strict obligation). This verse articulates the profound desire that sustained commitment to God's law should generate: not mere survival but restoration to spiritual vitality. The Resh stanza emphasizes that even steady obedience requires repeated revivals.
Church Fathers on Psalms 119:159
1. From its commencement, dearly beloved, does this great Psalm exhort us unto bliss, which there is no one who desires not....And therefore this is the lesson which he teaches, who says, “Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord” Psalm 118:1. As much as to say, I know what you wish, you are seeking bliss: if then you would be blessed, be undefiled. For the former all desire, the latter fear: yet without it what all wish cannot be…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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